SANTA ANA : Boy Heads for Video Game Championship

LYNN FRANEY

When 12-year-old Julio Montes takes a trip to San Diego later this year, it won't be to loll on the beach or sightsee. The Sierra Junior High School student will play video games. And play them seriously.

Montes was the winner of a Nintendo-sponsored video game competition in Santa Ana over the weekend, racking up 828,300 points on three Nintendo games--Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Kart and Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball.

He'll play those games again when he hits Nintendo's PowerFest '94 championships in San Diego Nov. 18-20.

There, he'll test his hand-eye coordination and quickness against 150 young video game wizards from across the country in the largest video game competition in American history.

"I've been playing Nintendo a long time," said an excited Montes, who recalled how he began playing when he received a SuperNintendo system and two games as a Christmas gift four years ago.

A generator failure halted the competition for about 20 minutes on Friday, the first day of the video game battles. But PowerFest spokesman Terrance Scott said the outage did not affect the competition and no games had to be replayed.